After the hurricane of September 13, 1843, washed away all of the homes, buildings and railroad tracks in Port Leon promoters Nathaniel Hamlin, James Ormond, Peter H. Swain and several others met a week later and made plans to establish another town.

They spent several days searching for a site safe from the sea, then selected a piece of land on the west side of the St. Marks River, about two miles below the old town of Magnolia, Florida.

It was owned by the Apalachicola Land Co.[2][failed verification] The organization permitted citizens who had suffered from the storm to draw lots at a cost of $25 and up.

Exporting cotton, tobacco and animal hides and importing items such as flour, coffee, whiskey, gunpowder, quinine and other medicines by rail proved expensive.

Newport competed as a port with nearby St. Marks that offered a rail connection to Tallahassee that, in the beginning, featured mule-pulled train cars.

This type of road was introduced by the Spanish centuries earlier when they created routes of travel by laying logs across low places.

Ladd, Ormond, John Denham, William McNaught and several others in Newport backed a plan to build a plank road proposed by Green and Joseph Chaires, wealthy Leon County planters.